Chibi
by DarkBeta
Summary: There's small, and then there's REALLY small. How many of you have read, "Cold War in a Country Garden"?
1. Prologue

"Research on the interaction of human genetic and environmental influences had once been limited to hypothesis and statistics. The homunculi changed that. Drugs or other treatments could be tested in vivo, and adverse affects noted before the patient suffered them.

They were genetically human, aside from scaled down growth and development. Their neural complexity was far too limited for intelligence. They had some basic responsiveness to stimuli - flight, ingestion and procreation - and like flatworms could be trained to a minimal degree of problem solving, but in testing they measured far below rats. A resemblance to their full-sized genetic twins seldom caused researchers any permanent compunctions.

Once the wealthy and famous began to keep precautionary stocks of their homunculi, the interest of hobbyists was inevitable. The "huncs" were marketed as "Living Dolls". Personal genotypes were protected, of course, but semblances of political or entertainment figures could be bred in less than a year, and toy companies provided the accessories and costumes.

Prosthetic neurons were a second medical advance, designed to replace damaged brain tissue. They acted like a virus, attaching themselves to white blood cells for delivery to the injured area, infecting damaged neurons, and replacing them with a carbon-based superconducting network. Charge efficiencies limited the replacement structures to a centimeter or two, but when combined with retraining the therapy was very effective in cases of stroke or other localized damage.

The initial studies had been done on homunculi, of course. The resulting chimerae - homunculi with a non-cellular "brain" - could be programmed with remarkably elaborate behaviors. This meant little to the medical researchers, but the Eldee market went ballistic. Customers could receive not only a specific type or likeness, but a matching repertoire of behavioral sets. The Historical Figures educational line provided a "Winston Churchill" who walked with a characteristic stride and chewed on an imitation cigar. "Sally Rand" was supplied with both fans and fan-dance.

As saleable behaviors became more complex, the industy co-opted the knowledge-base platforms created for gamers or fantasists. These already existed in program form, and the slightly increased rate of defective behaviors was balanced by speed of manufacture and access to short-term marketing opportunities.

No one stopped to calculate that the prosthetic neurons, replacing nearly the entire homunculi cerebellum with a structure elaborated to the quantum level, would reach complexities equivalent to the human brain."

from Trooping All Together: An Historical Retrospective


	2. Chapter 1

Part I: Edogawa Conan

Conan couldn't remember his abduction. He did remember - in odd, academic detail - hundreds of clues and deductions. Mouri Ran, and the evening at the amusement park when he missed his chance to say he loved her. Help from Dr. Agasa. Mouri Kogoro's reluctant shelter. The enthusiasm of the Detective Boys. Hattori Heiji, his almost equal. Sardonic Ai.

Then there was confusion, darkness, roller-coaster movement, and a strange cell. He slept and woke at least twice before, with a shock like some last connection made, he came to himself.

He assembled what data he had, trying not to theorize yet about the Black Org's intentions. His clothes were a deliberate mockery of his usual jacket and shorts. The fabric was as stiff as canvas (and the coarsely knit underclothes not much better), with seams fused instead of sewn. His glasses were heavy empty frames. His shoes were cast plastic, and the lever for Dr. Agasa's kick mechanism was a painted detail.

When he stripped them off, he couldn't find any tracer or other devices. He put them on again. Coarse as the fabric was, he didn't care for being naked among his enemies.

The narrow cell would allow an adult to lie down or stand up, and not much more. For once Conan's shrunken form worked in his favor. The walls were thick irregular plastic, a five-sided oblong fixed against a flat red wall. Any bolts or fastenings were outside and out of his reach.

At one side of the cell, molded from the plastic of the floor, was a square well filled with a tangle of shaggy grey-green stems. He didn't recognize the species. It had an earthy smell that mostly covered the sharper stink of decay.

A similar cube depended from the ceiling. From its base to just above the planter a kind of half-pipe dented the wall. A gelatinous stuff oozed down through a port no larger than his child-sized palm, seeped along the grooved wall, and fell in trembling globes into the planter. It evaporated or was absorbed there, since the plastic well didn't overflow.

More small ports pierced the the ceiling beside the reservoir. He couldn't reach them, and if he did manage to get a hand out he couldn't see anything close enough to grasp. At least his immediate fate probably didn't include suffocation.

Conan spent more time examining the goo than anything else, because it was the only substance within the cell that changed. It didn't smell acidic or noxious. He dabbled one of the plastic shoes and then the canvas jacket into the stuff. The materials seemed undamaged. He risked touching it. The surface was almost solid. He had to punch hard to get a hand through, and it welled around his wrist like dough.

Eventually, thirsty and hungry enough to be reckless, he pinched off a glob of it and put it in his mouth. The solidity melted into a cool paste. It tasted faintly sweet. When he finally swallowed his stomach didn't protest.

The bright sides of the cell slowly got brighter. Shadows moved across it. Conan squinted, trying to make sense of what looked like a blurred video. A shape coalesced on the plastic walls, a distorted face three or four times as tall as Conan himself. A hand like the Buddha at Kamakura came up in front of the face. The whole sequence took close to half an hour. Just as the image of a fingertip flattened against the screen, the cell shook. Conan could only roll, curled and braced for impact.

The cell settled into its original position. He stood up again while it was still rocking. The image shrank, the face turning to one side and then sliding out of view.

The Black Org's softening-up period was almost textbook - isolation, dehumanizing uniform, random aural and visual input, and confusing environment. He was still alive though. They had a use for him, and that meant he had some hope of blocking their plans. What he feared most was that he was a hostage, that his parents or Kogoro or Hattori were being driven into a maze on his behalf.

No. That wasn't what he feared most. He could survive whatever the Black Org planned - probably - and hope to turn the tables on them. But if he was here . . . what were the chances that he was the only one? Was Ran here someplace? Or Ai, whom he promised to protect? Or worst of all, the real children, the Detective Boys?

Did they endure what he did? Was it worse for them, while he sat in something like comfort?

The gelatine could be drugged. He watched its flow, wondering if he should fast. If the Black Org had to come into the cell to inject or dose him, he'd have some small chance to escape or strike back.

He hadn't found anything like a door or hatch, though, or any way in which one could be hidden. And they could just as easily taint the air, like the Kaitou Kid's gas bombs. He couldn't afford to be too weak to act when he had a chance.

The special effects were easier to interpret once he got used to the distortion of the plastic walls. He seemed to be looking out across a chasm of space at a flat surface the size of a sports field, covered with bright flat slabs in house-sized piles. Beyond that was another chasm, and then a cliffside with a checkerboard of shiny squares. When he'd watched for a while he saw huge constructions wheeling laboriously through the chasms like movie monsters. Sometimes he'd have to look away for five or ten minutes, and check their positions when he looked back, just to be sure they were moving at all.

Between observations he either reviewed old cases or exercised. Wrapping one of the boots with the canvas jacket made a barely adequate substitute for a soccer ball. Kicking or striking it against the upper walls and ceiling gave him a chance to check the surfaces he couldn't reach. He found no weaknesses, but even that was necessary information.

When he got hungry enough that even ooze was better than nothing, he ate. Eventually, out of necessity, he used the planter for a toilet. After the third time he ate he stretched out on the floor and slept. When he woke everything was the same.

He'd eaten for the fifth time when he saw the translucent walls were darkening. The slow looming shapes merged into a distant fog.

When he heard scratching above him he assumed it was rats; just what he expected from the Black Org's jail. The noise got louder and more regular, until he recognized sawing. A rough slat of metal jabbed thru the translucent ceiling and rasped sideways. It had scored a square into the plastic.

A boot struck down at the translucent pane. It cracked. Someone peered down at Conan. The face was in shadow, but a top hat and the glint of a monacle were enough identification. Briefly he thought this might all be some humiliating prank of the white-caped thief, and shook with rage and disgust and relief.

(If the Kaitou Kid had set this up, Ran was safe. No-one got hurt at at a Kid heist!)

"You!"

"Everything you remember is a lie," the Kid said.


	3. Chapter 2

Part II: Kuroba Kaito aka the Kaitou Kid

""What?"

The teensy detective hadn't figured things out. If not for a previous encounter with a falsehood who thought himself real, perhaps Kaito wouldn't have assembled the facts either. Fortunately Edogawa was eager to leave his prison. Kaito didn't have to explain . . . yet.

"Come on. Some friends of yours need help."

He dropped a length of cord. Edogawa scrambled up, and followed Kaito gamely. The gap between Edogawa's box and the next one over was wide. Kaito kept an eye on him, in case remembered skill would lead the child's body beyond its ability.

The boy took off his useless plastic shoes and threw them ahead, then launched himself across the gap. He had to scrabble for balance on the slick plastic, but he didn't need Kaito's help. They hurdled another gap.

"Where are we going?"

Kaito pointed down through a hatch he'd opened earlier. A heavy-set boy squatted in a corner, with a smaller boy and girl huddled so close on either side that they were almost in his lap.

"You know them, right? They were crying for Conan earlier."

"Those bastards kidnapped the Detective Boys! Genta, Mitsuhiko, Ayumi, look up here. Are you all right? We're getting you out . . . !"

"Not yet, little critic."

Tantei-chan always forgot how mass-challenged his body was. He turned as soon as Kaito spoke, but that just made it easier. One quick strike at his feet, and the boy toppled back through the open square..

He landed cat-like, not much less gracefully than Kaito himself. In the moment before he was buried in panicked children, he squawked words no-one would've expected from someone his age.

"I'll be back," Kaito promised.

He was considering identity as he explored farther. How much of what he remembered could he still claim? A brief experiment with a sharp edge proved assembly lines an unlikely possibility, but his father was probably not a murdered magician who required avenging.

On the other hand, he had certain skills (he produced a rather stiff artificial flower from his sleeve, as he launched himself across the abyss between adjoining boxes) and certain attitudes. Leaving the junior detectives to cry had never been an option. Were curiousity and protectiveness sufficient for a personality? What was he, apart from memories that lied?

He checked each box as he crossed it. He had found the Sleeping Kogoro (sleeping), Mouri Ran (also sleeping), and Aoko (awake, so insults howled after him as he leapt to the next box), when he looked through the wavery plastic into his own face.

For the third time since he'd escaped his own container Kaito began to saw through the heavy cover. It probably wasn't wise; it certainly didn't help the half-formed philosophies turning in his head; but he had to know.

"Kaitou Kid," his other self said. "International Criminal 1412. Did you bring me here?"

The Kaitou Kid took off his hat and monocle. He stared down at the face he knew the other was seeing.

"Not a robot. I checked."

The other Kaito pulled up a coarse sleeve that was colored like his school uniform, and sliced a cracked shard of the plastic across his arm. A bubble of red welled up, too thick and large, but still identifiably blood.

He staunched it with a thick kerchief, which he balled up into a pocket. (In either guise, the Kaitou Kid didn't leave identifying evidence unnecessarily.) The white-suited Kaitou dropped down to face him. The schoolboy Kaito grinned.

"This will make it easy to fool Aoko."

"She's here. Also the teensy detective, his minder and her father, and the Detective Boys. Kudo hasn't figured out yet that he's even teensier."

Poker Face didn't slip. Kaito was proud of himself.

Schoolboy Kaito didn't have access to the lines and springs (however poor the imitation) supplied to the Kaitou, but with a small assist he pulled himself as lithely out through the hatch. He reached down for the thief. The Kaitou slipped his monocle back in place and put on the hat before he accepted the offer.

Hands still clasped across the open hole, Kaito grinned at himself. It was so good to have nothing to explain!

"This is going to be FUN!"


	4. Chapter 3

Part III: Haibara Ai

One cell, glass-walled for observation. So, the Organization had her again. Shiho wondered why she wasn't more afraid. Poor foolish Kudo would be sorry. Sorrier still if his obsessive detecting was what discovered her to the hunters. Sorriest of all if he sat now in another such cell.

One companion. One familiar companion. It was not real. She was not real. Her sister was dead. Dream, hallucination, or plot; Shiho knew better than to trust in appearances.

Her best plan now was the one that went so awry before. She had no handy capsules of untested poison about her this time. There were certain failsafes she'd adopted . . . . She'd been searched though, judging by the coarse mockery of a labcoat and the gradeschool uniform under it that they'd put her in. A grimace and quick flutter of hands proved those doors shut.

Still, death was a familiar friend and wouldn't need much invitation. (Kudo would never see it so. The worse for him, if he was here.) She might seem younger, but she was far older now than the teenager who'd feared pain and disfigurement. More familiar with the doorways of departure. (As anyone would be, who accompanied Kudo for long. Perhaps she owed him gratitude after all.)

For a moment, wistfully, she wondered if she'd already passed the door. Her sister's presence, and the absence of fear; she wouldn't need much more to account this heaven. But after all . . . .

"Little girl, who are you?"

. . . this was obviously not heaven.


	5. Chapter 4

Part IV: Mouri Kogoro

He'd woken in strange places before. In empty rooms, on a cold bench, sitting in a fountain, with a cigar burnt down to his fingers or his own blood running down his face . . . . If there was anything to hate about the strange path that had made him the Sleeping Detective, it was unceremonious waking.

This plastic box was stranger than all of them. Where was he? No, where had he been? Surely his razor sharp deduction could find the path that led to this . . . incarceration. He remembered police work, family, the wife who walked out on him.

(Not that he missed her, of course. Or the department. Free, he was free now to flirt, or drink, or take on the most dangerous cases. A true man's life was solitary. Just like detectives in the movies, facing the dark alleys of life with a sneer at danger and a laugh at despair.)

He patted his pocket for cigarettes and discovered the broadcloth mockery of his suit. How dare they! This was some prank of Major Crimes. They thought he didn't know how much they envied him, the way he'd rubbed their noses in a string of successful cases.

"I know who you are! I want to speak to the Inspector, right now! Get me Inspector Megure!"

Silence ate his words. Surely someone was listening? Where was the fun in a prank ignored?

"Come on, guys. The joke is getting old. I'm not going to complain to your superiors."

Admittedly this was some weird lock-up. They hadn't had anything like it when he was on the force. Times changed, but someone would have told him if the police needed plastic cells now, right? Even in top-security prisons. Metal-bending mutants only turned up in the movies that lousy detective dragged his daughter to.

Nothing in his memory told him how he'd gotten here. He would remember being arrested, wouldn't he? And even if he didn't, that witch Eri would be here to laugh at him as she arranged his release. She would be here. And Ran would too. Probably the guards would want him to pay for the walls she'd broken.

'It's your own fault,' he'd tell them. 'You're the ones who were stupid enough to make her mad.'

Eri and Ran weren't here. Stupid Eri was probably checking every word, and then copying everything five times. Ran didn't argue with her mother, not even when she should be supporting her poor old dad. Here he was without booze or cigarettes, not even anything that looked like water. He'd take another nap, and when he woke up again they'd have arrived.

'Oh, did it really take that long? Of course I didn't notice. Quite a relaxing stay, that was what I had. No worries at all!'

Only they weren't here. Maybe, just maybe, that meant they didn't know where he was. His poor family! Just think of how panicked they must be, deprived of his incisive insight, wondering where he'd gone.

'Sometimes a man has to do what a man has to do.'

If he wasn't locked up by the police (a prank, just a prank; yes, sometimes he forgot the cases he'd just deduced, sometimes there were gaps in his memory, but he'd never do anything to deserve arrest), then where was he? What other reason could there be?

Some secret criminal organization, trying to pre-empt his interference after he accidentally got involved in one of their plots? Eh, but that was stupid. Something out of the mysteries that free-loader always had his nose in. Such an organization couldn't survive in modern Japan.

(Although that was rather a pity. He could see himself going up against a group like that, his life on the line every day, lying to his family and friends to keep them from getting mixed up in the long battle, tricking their spies and their agents over and over. Ah, that would be a problem a man could set his teeth into! Of course, if there was such an organization they'd probably just shoot him and move on. It wasn't like criminals made things more complicated than they had to.)

So where was he? This really didn't look like any prison cell he'd ever seen. More like quarantine. Could that be it? Those spells of unconsiousness, maybe they were a symptom of something worse. Could he have been incubating something noxious all this time? One of those strange tropical diseases you read about. Bird flu or sudden respiratory distress? Suddenly he really needed to cough. And his throat was so dry . . . .

"Hey, what's going on? Is anyone out there? Tell me what's happening?"

Why wasn't there anyone around? If this was some kind of hospital room (it didn't even have a bed) where were the doctors and the pretty nurses? Even if the hospital was really busy . . . .

Plague! That had to be it. People dropping dead on the sidewalk, exhausted doctors falling to the same infection, the wind blowing an empty shopping bag along a silent street.

"Hey! Where's my daughter? What's happened to my wife? Mouri Eri and Mouri Ran, where are they? Are they sick? Tell me!"

Still no answer. He pounded on the walls and shouted again, over and over. The walls didn't give. He went around and around them, looking for a door, hinges, some kind of weakness. He leapt for the vents above him, and fell back without catching a grip.

"Ran! Eri-i-i!"

His hardest punches did nothing more than scar the plastic a bit, and smear it with blood from his knuckles. He dropped to the floor, gasping and shaking. Still nothing moved but the vast vague shadows on the wall.

If this wasn't a jail cell, if it wasn't a hospital . . . . If it wasn't a medical hospital . . . .

"Was it me? Did I . . . do something? Is that why I'm here?"

He remembered being angry. It felt cold and distant to him now, but he did remember shouting at Ran, trading insults with Eri, thumping the freeloader to keep his nose out of grown-up business. That was normal, wasn't it? Eri had walked out on him, made him the caregiver for their daughter. Anyone would be mad!

Only no-one could say it was normal to collapse, to solve case after case and remember none of them. He'd done no harm. No, he'd done good, saving people from false arrest. He'd made sure murderers didn't escape to kill again. That was what he was supposed to do. If his unconscious took over then, well, it didn't matter.

But he didn't remember. He didn't remember so much.

What if he was doing more during the blackouts than people told him afterwards? What if the judge inside him, sat in judgement more than anyone knew?

"Ran. Eri. Conan. Where are you? Talk to me. Please, somebody, talk to me!"

(Author's note: I wrote this because inexplicable spells of unconsciousness in which i'm apparently aware and active . . . would terrify me. My first supposition would be a brain tumor, and after that some form of schizophrenia. I'm surprised Mouri-san isn't running in to the hospital for brain scans every other weekend. Conan has a lot to answer for.

In this AU Conan is without his voice-changer, watch and skateboard. Mouri-san will have no more spells of oblivious detection. I do wonder what that does to the relationship between them?

Also Mouri-san seems like a guy who hates being alone. He needs people to respond to him, to pay attention to him. Solitary imprisonment would probably break him faster than anything else. Wonder how he'd get along with Kuroba Kaito-kun?)


End file.
